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call ’em as I see ’em, Miss.”
    “Miss!” the Hag Queen echoed with a howl. “I love that. Are you sure you won’t let me have another taste of those delicious memories you keep locked away inside that handsome skull? A sweet little bonbon from your past?” She swooped toward him and brushed his ear with her black lips. “Your first kiss, perhaps?” she cooed sickeningly.
    “I’m afraid we have more pressing business,” the Headmaster said.
    “Ugh, you don’t really want me to drain the memory of that crusty old relic again, do you?” The Hag Queen nodded to the Director. “I won’t do it, you know. His hatred of the boy is stale. It’s a memory of a memory of a memory. He doesn’t truly hate the boy anymore, anyway—he only knows that he should.”
    Charlie turned to the Director. “Is that true?”
    “Of course not!” the Director snapped. Then he seemed to realize that he was arguing in favor of having his memory drained by a monster. “I mean…hasn’t this all gone too far? Aren’t there alternatives?”
    “Oh, I agree completely,” the Headmaster replied. “I would love to put an end to this madness. As I said, we have serious matters to attend to, life-or-death concerns. Perhaps it’s time for a truce.”
    “A truce,” the Director echoed. “Yes. Perhaps that is prudent. In the best interest of everyone.”
    But before he could speak another word, the ground beneath them began to shake violently. At first Charlie thought it was an earthquake, but he could tell by the panic that flooded the Hag Queen’s eyes that it was something far worse.
    “No,” she said, rising higher into the air on her strong wings. “He’s near.”
    “He?” Charlie asked.
    The stained-glass windows in the ballroom shook crazily as the rumbling intensified and a ripple like a giant wave passed under the manor, buckling the ancient stone floor.
    Something huge had moved through the ground beneath their feet.
    Something monstrous.
    Everyone was thrown to the floor as the chandeliers came loose from their ceiling anchors and plummeted down like glass bombs.
    “Cover your eyes!” Rex yelled.
    Charlie and his friends did—just in time to avoid being blinded by the fragments. Soon, the violent rumbling lessened and everyone was able to stand. The ground beneath their feet spasmed once…twice…then grew still.
    “What was that?” Violet asked after a moment, breaking the silence.
    “That,” the Hag Queen replied as she hovered high in the air, “was Slagguron.”
    “The Third Named,” the Headmaster said softly, eyeing the massive damage the monster had inflicted just by passing near them. It was one of the few times Charlie had seen her look impressed.
    “He travels underground?” Tabitha asked.
    “Didn’t you know?” The Hag Queen seemed genuinely surprised.
    “We’ve never seen him,” Director Drake said, finally shrugging Rex’s lasso from around his chest. “We’ve heard rumors, of course, and one of them was that he was like a giant worm that traveled through the Nethercrust, but they were never confirmed.”
    “Consider them confirmed.” The Hag Queen settled back down on the buckled ground. “He’s been very active lately, tunneling through much of the Nether. Never before has he strayed from his palace in the Inner Circle.” She smiled secretively. “But, of course, there is much that is strange in the Nether, of late.”
    Just then, a shriek ripped through the air with such intensity that the stained-glass windows exploded from the vibration. A sound like a jet engine roared closer.
    “Look!” Theodore yelled and pointed. “That thing’s ridiculous!”
    Through the broken window, Charlie could see a golden streak in the sky, flapping magnificently against the red, fiery tornado of the Inner Circle far in the distance.
    “Tyrannus,” the Headmaster whispered. “The Fourth Named.”
    The streak moved through the alien air of the Nether with astonishing speed, and